


Little Rose

by SeveralSmallHedgehogs



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Team STRQ - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 08:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10213352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeveralSmallHedgehogs/pseuds/SeveralSmallHedgehogs
Summary: AU (possibly) in which Qrow is Ruby's dad, but Taiyang raised Ruby because Qrow just can't. Told from Qrow's POV, goes up to the fall of Beacon.





	

            Ruby was the most amazing thing Qrow had ever seen.

            He’d stayed away from the hospital room at first, fearing his semblance might affect the delivery. But as soon as everything was over, an orderly showed him to Summer’s room.

            When he stepped inside, he found Summer sitting upright in her bed, holding her newborn- _their_ newborn. She looked up and smiled when Qrow entered the room. “Do you want to hold her?” she asked, lifting Ruby a little higher.

            “Uh. Sure,” Qrow said haltingly, stepping over next to the bed. Summer carefully transferred the little bundle of yellow cloth to Qrow. He immediately took a seat in a chair in the corner, half afraid of losing his grip and dropping her, and only then did he look down at the baby’s face.

            She was blotchy, and red, and pinched, and wrinkly, and Qrow thought to himself that he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his entire life. “Hey, Ruby,” he said quietly, smiling down at her. “I’m your dad. It’s nice to meet you.” He looked up and found Summer smiling at him. “What?”

            “I don’t think I’ve seen you look like that in a long time,” she told him. “And you’re doing a baby voice. I’ve never heard you do that.”

            “I am not doing a baby voice.”

            “You were.”

            “...Was I really?” Qrow looked back down. Ruby was yawning. Just that action was so incredible. She was _alive,_ and he’d helped _make_ this- this new little life. Him and Summer. Mostly Summer. Pretty much entirely Summer.

            “…She’s so tiny,” he murmured.

            “She’ll get a lot bigger,” Summer said with a laugh.

            Just then, there was a knock on the door. A blond man poked his head in and grinned. “Oh, good. I’ve got the right room.”

            “Taiyang,” Summer said. “It’s good to see you.”

            “It’s good to see you, too,” Taiyang replied, stepping inside and looking around. After a second, his eyes found Qrow sitting in the corner with Ruby. He lowered his voice and glanced at Summer. “Is that her?”

            “Yeah,” Qrow answered, feeling his heart sink. He’d only gotten to hold her for a minute. This was happening too fast. “This is Ruby.”

            Taiyang looked between Qrow and Summer. He’d always been good at reading the atmosphere in a room; he had to have realized the gloom that had suddenly settled over them. “Are you guys sure about this?” he asked uncertainly. “Because, I mean…” He looked at Qrow. “If you want to keep her, I’m fine with that. We can figure something-”

            “No,” Qrow interrupted. He got to his feet. “I can’t help take care of her. I’ve got to keep looking for Raven. And I don’t want her to feel like her dad abandoned her. I need you to take her.” He stepped over to Taiyang and shifted his hold on the baby so he could hand her to his friend.

            But Taiyang didn’t take her. He looked from Ruby’s face to Qrow’s. “Qrow,” he said quietly. “I feel like-“

            “She’ll still have Summer,” Qrow told him gruffly. “She’ll still have her mom. Just… let her think you’re her dad. Please. I’m begging you, Tai. I don’t want her to have to go through what Yang is already.”

            Taiyang looked grim, but he took Ruby. Qrow let his arms drop to his sides, feeling emptier than he had the day he found out his sister had abandoned her own child with Taiyang. _Like I’m any better,_ he thought to himself. _We just keep leaving our kids with poor Tai, don’t we?_

            He cleared his throat. “Thanks for… for letting me be here for this,” he said, looking away. “It means a lot.” He headed for the door, and just as he put his hand on the doorknob, a tiny wail rose from the bundle in Taiyang’s arms. Qrow paused and looked back over his shoulder.

            Summer and Taiyang were watching him sadly. He looked away again. “Ruby’s crying,” he said. His voice caught on her name. “She’s probably hungry, or something. I-I should…” Dammit. He was choking up. “I should go before anything goes wrong. See you, guys. Thanks again.” Then he stepped through the door and shut it behind himself.

           

            It was scary, how fast she grew. How much he missed. At one point she could barely roll over, and then next time he saw her, she was standing up on her own. Then she was walking. And then came the day he dropped by to say hello and Yang ran into the hall with a cry of “Uncle Qrow!” Then came Ruby, following on her awkward toddler legs, throwing her arms around his leg and repeating, “Uncle Qrow!”

            Every time she called him that, his heart broke a little more. He wasn’t her uncle. And she could never know that. He didn’t want to see her face if she ever realized how he and Summer and Tai had lied to her…

           

            A couple of years later, when Ruby was almost four, Qrow was in Vacuo looking for Raven and he got a panicked call from Taiyang. Summer had left for a mission and hadn’t come back. He’d lost contact with her. Nobody knew where she was.

            Qrow returned to Vale, and he looked and looked for Summer but he never found her. He followed her trail as far as he could, but by that point, it was cold. She was gone. Summer was gone.

            Taiyang told the girls. Qrow was too grief-stricken to say much. He just sat on the couch and stared blankly at the floor.

            A tiny hand rested on his knee. He looked up and found Ruby standing next to him, looking concerned. “Uncle Qrow?” she said in that little voice of hers. Then she held up her arms, and Qrow obligingly pulled her up into his lap. She leaned against him, but she said nothing.

            That same day, Qrow found Taiyang sitting in his room with his head hanging. Qrow sat in a chair nearby. “Tai?” he asked quietly.

            “It was my fault,” Taiyang said brokenly.

            “What?”

            “My job wasn’t pulling in enough.” Taiyang put his head in his hands. His shoulders shook. “The mission Summer took was- it was dangerous, but I pushed her to take it. We- we needed the money.” He swallowed, hard. “And now she’s…”

            Qrow sat back in his chair, feeling something cold in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t sure what it was. He felt angry. He felt horrified. He felt like he wanted to punch something.

            But he didn’t. He just got to his feet and walked out of the room.

            After that, Taiyang just shut down. Qrow didn’t leave Vale for fear that something would happen to Ruby and Yang while he was gone; Tai was in no shape to take care of them. Granted, neither was Qrow, really. He felt dead. And he knew absolutely nothing about kids. But he did know that he didn’t take care of the girls, nobody would.

          So, Qrow moved in with them accepted a job as a teacher at Signal Academy to take care of bills. He did his best to take care of Ruby and Yang, and it was rough for all of them at first. But they managed.

          The only bright side was getting to see the girls. He was finally there for a few milestones, like Yang punching a bully for the first time (but not the last). And he was there when Ruby came home with a perfect report card. They had a celebration that night- cake and ice cream. It took forever to get the girls to go to sleep after eating all that sugar.

          Over time, Taiyang started to recover, and the girls both got into Signal and started training to become huntresses. Qrow helped Ruby with her scythe, and in no time she was at the top of her class.

          But Ruby was still years from graduating when Qrow got a mission from Ozpin. He resigned from his position at Signal and only stayed in town long enough to say goodbye to Tai and the girls.

          “How long are you gonna be gone?” Ruby asked him as he was leaving

          Qrow hesitated. His mission from Ozpin was pretty top-secret, and he really had no idea how long was going to take. First he had to _find_ the Fall Maiden, and then he had to protect her for who-knew-how-long...

          “I dunno,” he told Ruby. He almost added, _But I’ll catch you later, kid._ It was how he always said goodbye to Ruby. He didn’t say it this time, though. He didn’t want her to get her hopes up. The whole point of Taiyang and Summer raising Ruby was so that if something happened to Qrow out in the field, she wouldn’t be losing anyone she was very close to.

          So much for that plan.

          Qrow turned away, trying to act casual. “I’ll be back when I can be,” he told Ruby with a shrug. “So it’ll probably be a while. Keep practicing while I’m gone, all right?”

          “I will!” Ruby replied excitedly. “I’ll be _awesome_ when you get back!” Qrow waved at her without turning around again, not trusting his expression to keep his thoughts hidden. Without another word, he stepped out of the house and shut the door.

 

          He was gone for years, and he had basically no contact with anyone besides Ozpin. He wondered about Ruby and Yang on a daily basis. He wondered if they were doing all right, how school was going, whether they were making any friends. A couple of times, he thought about sending them a letter. But he never got around to it. It wasn’t like he’d have been in one place long enough to get a response, anyway.

          Then he finally found Amber, but he was too late to be much help. He sent Ozpin an update and rushed her back to Vale. And when he got there, who did he find at Beacon, but the one and only Ruby Rose. Apparently Ozpin had pulled her forward two grades and offered her a place at Beacon. The fact that she was on a team with Yang was only a little comfort; Yang wasn’t exactly the Responsible Big Sister type. But she’d keep an eye on Ruby, at least.

          Then the Grimm attacked Vale.

          The attack itself wasn’t a surprise; he’d known Salem’s group was planning something. He just hadn’t been expecting something of that scale. He hadn’t been expecting them to release Grimm into the school. He hadn’t been expecting the widespread chaos. He hadn’t been expecting the Dragon.

           He fought with Glynda under Ozpin’s orders, but a few huntsman and a couple dozen kids in training weren’t enough to hold off an attack of this size. They were fighting not just Grimm, but Ironwood’s goddamn robots, too. It was all they could do to keep people alive. And the enemies seemed endless. Qrow wasn’t getting tired- he could handle way more than this- but the city was destroyed. He wasn’t sure Vale would be able to rebuild anytime soon. There were too many Grimm and there was too much damage.

            He’d just killed another Beowolf- he’d been counting them at first, but lost count around 300- when there was a flash of light from the top of Beacon Tower. Qrow whirled around, but just as quickly it had appeared, the light was gone. The huge Grimm that had been circling the tower had frozen, as if turned to stone. Something about that gave him a bad feeling.

            He left Glynda and Ironwood and rushed to the loading site as quickly as he could. The first familiar thing he spotted was Yang’s yellow hair. He made his way to the crowd, but when he finally reached her, he stopped cold. She was on the ground, unconscious, next to her partner Blake. Blake was holding one of Yang’s hands, and the other… the other was…

            Qrow’s shoulders drooped. “Oh, no.” How was he going to explain this to Tai?

            “Um, excuse me…”

            He looked up. Ruby’s partner was standing next to him, looking haggard. He recalled that she was a Schnee, but at the moment, she didn’t look a whole lot like her father. She just looked tired and sad. She was leaning on her sword as she asked him, “You’re Ruby’s uncle, aren’t you?”

            _No._ “Yeah,” Qrow said, turning toward her. He glanced around, expecting to see Ruby nearby, but she wasn’t. He scanned the crowd, but he didn’t spot her red cape. He looked back at the Schnee girl. “Where’s Ruby?”

            Weiss looked stricken. “I was hoping you could tell me. I haven’t seen her since I helped her get to the top of the tower.”

            Qrow’s blood ran cold. “Which tower?”

            She pointed to Beacon Tower. Where the Grimm dragon was still frozen.

            Without a word, Qrow raced towards the school. As soon as he was out of view of the loading site, he shapeshifted into a bird and shot to the top of the tower. The Grimm gave off an aura of pure fear, urging him to turn and flee. He ignored it, scanning the wreckage at the top of the tower.

            There. Red. Ruby’s cape. He shifted in midair and landed on two feet to dash across the rubble. Ruby was on the ground, unconscious. He dropped to his knees and pulled her upright. She was cold as ice. “Ruby!” he shook her a little, trying to wake her up. “Ruby! Come on, kid…”

             Her eyes fluttered but didn’t open. “Uncle Qrow…?” she murmured, shifting a little and then wincing in pain. “What… what happened?”

            She was alive. She was _alive!_ “It’s all right,” Qrow told her, lifting her off the ground and struggling to his feet. “I gotcha, kiddo. I gotcha.” She weighed a lot more than she had the last time he picked her up, back in the hospital room the day she was born. Qrow swallowed hard. “You’re gonna be fine,” he told her. “You’re gonna be fine, I gotcha…”

           

**Author's Note:**

> I am 90% sure Qrow is Ruby's dad, you guys. I mean, look at the way they interact. And they have similar color schemes, like Yang and her father. Qrow and Ruby's themes even have a couple phrases in common! *smacks my hand against conspiracy theory board* HEAR ME OUT YOU GUYS
> 
> I should be working on schoolwork. Or my Shallura fic. Or packing, since I'm getting on a shuttle in about an hour...
> 
> Find me on tumblr [here!](http://severalsmallhedgehogs.tumblr.com/)


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